Beauty and Her Beast
by Teris24
Summary: Many years after high school, a very different Yomi crosses paths with a very different Tomo. Language, adult situations, violence, weird stuff.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **I don't own any Azumanga Daioh characters.

**Note:** Might continue this one.

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**Beauty and Her Beast**

"Hideous."

Koyomi Mizuhara stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. She was wet and the air was still thick with the steam from her bath. Around her ankles a light blue towel had pooled where she dropped it. Back straight, hands resting gently to the surface of the counter, she refrained from looking at anything but the brown of her own eyes.

The common opinion was that baths were the best part of the day. The bath was the time to unwind and forget about the outside world. For Koyomi, the bath was the worst. She, like any other person who partook of an evening bath, knew the subtle awkwardness of being nude and alone, a body bereft of cultural identification. The significance of the shape and form of the body became exaggerated through the cleansing process. The process was not so much an event, but rather a system whereby a person had no choice but to gain intimate knowledge of themselves.

Koyomi didn't have her glasses on, but she didn't need them in order to know what she was seeing. Brown hair, brown eyes, smooth skin wrapping the shapely hour glass frame of a developing young woman. Her own body.

Every girl was familiar with her own face. Only an individual's self scrutiny was capable was picking out every line and detail, every nook, curve, formation, freckle, and inevitable imperfection. Imperfections were human and ultimately inescapable. To make and have errors was nothing less than human, and therefore to lack defects meant to become less human.

Koyomi knew these things just as all people did. As it was applied to the human race, perfection was non existent, and yet millions of people continued their struggle to achieve it.

Get rid of all odor, get rid of all hair below the neck and leave no trace of stubble or grain. No dry skin, no chipped nails, no pale complexions. Pluck eyebrows, lengthen eyelashes, exercise to get rid of all body fat that could potentially provide depth where depth was not wanted. Lose the fat to lose all curves. Imbed plastic to create synthetic symmetry and bust size instead. Plastics make everything possible. Everyone can get rid of their faces and build new ones. Permanent masks to wear for the rest of their lives. The more work required, the less natural, the more beautiful. Anyone can be anyone but themselves if they so desired.

Natural was not a beautiful thing by common standards. For women, natural was hairy legs and arm pits, thick eyebrows, blemishes, and complexions based solely upon genetics, race and sun exposure. Natural meant no diets or exercising. What fat was burned during daily activities would be the fat burned period. Natural was natural. Natural was what a girl was born with.

Koyomi frowned. What were girls born with? What was anyone born with? She herself was not natural. She plucked, she trimmed, tanned, groomed, waxed, and most of all, she starved. Each individual was given their own metabolic code. Her metabolism was slow and therefore she compensated for it.

"What is this?" she whispered and lifted her hand to her reflection. The tip of her middle finger traced the image of her jaw, stilling just below her chin. She could be a beautiful body if the rest of the world just dropped its definition of what beauty was. Why should thin have been more attractive than thick? Too thin was not healthy, and too fat was not healthy. Even being slightly over the 'commonly healthy' line was something that people noticed.

She dropped her hand and glanced down to the counter top. The surface of the counter was covered with bottles of moisturizers, body creams, facial creams, foundation, and other items marketed for the purpose of helping women recapture the essence of their 'natural' beauty. Along side the bottles was a container of wax and a small bag containing the tools necessary for nail care and eyebrow shaping.

The bag was taken up and Koyomi unzipped it, reaching inside for the pair of cuticle scissors. She slipped two fingers in through the scissors' looped handles and turned the instrument this way and that for examination.

There was no hiding the fact that beauty was painful, and this notion was nothing new. People were often repulsed by the old Chinese tradition of foot binding. The thought that the feet of young girls were bound tightly over many years to create the three to five inch result, the Golden Lotus, was hard for many to grasp. The process was incredibly painful and left the girls crippled for life, all in the name of living up to what was considered beautiful at the time.

Contemporarily, foot binding was barbaric. However, painful manipulation of bodies in the name of meeting modern beauty standards was not. Koyomi remembered her first introduction into that torturous realm. She had been fitted with braces in grade school and worn them for four years, the first of which had been agony on her entire mouth. The result was a set of twenty four teeth, perfectly straight. However, straight teeth were not necessary for survival, and thus her entire ordeal with braces had been for cosmetic purposes only.

Koyomi lifted the miniature scissors to her face, pressing their tips against the skin of her cheek. If beauty was pain, then she should have been able to create her own standards of beauty. Standards that she could achieve. If the world knew that she had made herself bleed for the sake of being attractive then they would see her scar as something lovely. They would commend her for the lengths that she had taken. The gash would hurt worse than any waxing or purging or cosmetic surgery. She would be completely awake for it and she would be able to look at it in the mirror for the rest of her life and remember how important being beautiful was.

She dug the scissors further against her skin. Pain sparked out across her face, and then she pushed a little more. There was no reason for her to believe that the pain was unpleasant. Comeliness was key.

No sooner did the points penetrate her cheek than she suddenly dropped the scissors back onto the counter. At all once her breathing became heavy and her skin flushed from her face all the way down to her chest. She looked at the scissors, then back up to her reflection.

"Stop it."

She crouched down and grabbed up her towel from the floor. Wrapping the towel around her, she then reached for her glasses from beside the sink and perched them upon her nose. How cliché it seemed to her, a teenager inflicting injury upon herself due to stress and confusion. There were many people in the world less fortunate than she was. Disfigurations and illnesses of all sorts were out there, and the worst of them were the cases that happened to people who had once been perfectly average.

Koyomi's syndrome classified as an irrational obsession with details. The older she grew and the more her body developed, the more in-tuned she became about the minute aspects of herself as compared to other girls. For someone not in her position, her mannerisms were difficult to understand. How could it be that a normal looking teenage girl could look at her reflection and see nothing but the flaws?

She sighed as she left the bathroom. A gash on her face would have done her a world of good. The scar would have stood out as a blatant disfiguration and given her a reason to think the way that she did. At least then others would see what she had been seeing all along, the inescapable repulsiveness that was Koyomi Mizuhara.

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**Note:** A very short snippet, I know. I do have a plot set up for this but, as it usually goes, continuation depends on motivation.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any Azumanga Daioh characters

**Note:** Another sporadic update. I'm very tempted to take this story in a very odd direction, but I'm not sure. These pairing stories just get so hackneyed no matter which way you write them. Does anyone have anything against zombies?

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**Chapter 2**

On the third floor of the school building, in second classroom down from the stairwell, class 3-2 talked among themselves as they waited for their teacher to arrive. The chime had rung and classes were moments away from beginning. It was the first day of a new year and everyone was as excited as they could have been.

In the second to last row, a boy had shifted sideways in his seat to talk with the boy behind him.

"No way. This year is going to be great. I've been dreaming of this ever since I came to this school."

"Me too. Ever since I got here I couldn't wait for it to be over. Now the end is in sight," the second boy laughed and leaned back in his seat, folding his hands behind his head.

"That's not what I'm talking about. You know whose class this is, right?"

"Mr. Egi's isn't it?"

"Oh Hell no! Didn't you hear? Mr. Egi had a stroke," the first boy smirked and gave a knowing bob of his head. "He'll never teach again, but if he does then he better find himself another class."

"So who's teaching this one now?"

"You ready?" the boy's voice lowered as though what he had to say was of the utmost confidential nature. He leaned forward closer to his friend and narrowed his eyes with an elfish grin. "It's Ms. Mizuhara."

"What!" the second boy shot forward and nearly slipped from his chair. His hands held a white-knuckle grip to the sides of his desk and his cheeks turned a very faint shade of red. "I thought she was admin only!"

"Yep. You and I are one of the lucky few to experience this. From here until the end, it's Ms. Mizuhara."

"Dammit! I'm never gonna be able to make it through a day. That woman is like….She's like-"

At that moment, the door of the classroom was slid open and the teacher, carrying her roll book in one hand and briefcase in another, made her entrance.

In heels, Ms. Mizuhara stood about five feet, seven inches tall. Her brown hair came just to her shoulder blades and was usually kept in a tight bun or held back with a barrette. Being on the administrative staff, she was required to dress more professionally than regular teachers and her attire of choice was usually Armani black. Today's outfit, as every boy in the class immediately noticed, was the skirt and blazer ensemble complete with a starch white blouse and tastefully simple accessories. Gold studs (one per ear), a women's Rolex (she insisted that it had been a gift), a necklace with a small cat emblem, and of course those ovular, thin-framed glasses perched upon her ski-sloped nose.

"Good morning, class," she spoke with hardly a smile as she set her things on her desk and then turned to write her name on the white board.

The two boys at the back of the room sat with mouths open and eyes taking quick opportunities to gawk at the back side of their new teacher. The tight curves of Ms. Mizuhara were the most notorious ones throughout the entire campus. The second boy leaned forward to whisper in his friend's ear.

"I heard she's a Hell of a frosty bitch though."

"Just icing on the cake, my friend. Icing on the cake," his friend muttered with a grin, gaze keeping fast upon the woman in front of the class.

Without missing a beat from her busy pace, Ms. Mizuhara dropped the marker back into the tray of the white board before turning and taking up her roll book. It had been a long time since she had had to do any teaching, but when there was a task that needed to be completed, even one as big as taking over a class for a whole year, she was not hesitant in accepting the job.

"Please raise your hand as I call your name. There's a lot we need to cover today and I would like to get to most of it before lunch."

--------

At the end of the day, Koyomi entered her office carrying a box in her arms. Using her foot, she closed the door behind her before crossing the room to set the box down by her desk. Inside the box were various files and folders, all of them thick and bulging with paperwork.

Any employee of the school should have been so lucky to have their own office, but Ms. Mizuhara was hardly under the employment of the school system. Rather she was part of a research team that worked for a much larger establishment, and she had been hired under the guise of the school's psychologist. She was not opposed to the recent circumstances that had landed her a teaching position in addition to her counseling one. Her ultimate goal required that she observe students as closely as possible, and there was nothing better than to be able to see them in their own classroom environments.

Sitting down at her desk, she touched her finger along the mouse pad of her laptop. The monitor of the laptop flicked on to reveal a black screen with two text boxes- one for a name and one for a password. She typed in both, and within seconds the laptop booted up to the last screen that she had been looking at. The majority of the screen was taken up by several odd looking charts and diagrams, and the smallest hint of a bluish desktop pattern could be seen behind them.

Before she could turn her attention to her work, there came a very soft knock upon the door.

"Ms. Mizuhara?" the timid voice of her assistant inquired from beyond.

Koyomi looked up, one eyebrow lifted into a high arch as she reached into the box by her desk.

"Yes? Come in," she responded, hauling from the box the first of several folders to be reviewed and added to the information net that she and her research team had been constructing over the course of several years.

The door to the office was pulled open just a crack and the older face of Mrs. Akiko Sakamoto peered inside. Mrs. Sakamoto was the third assistant that Koyomi had had since starting at the school, and so far she was the one who lasted the longest. She had taken the place of Ms. Kobayashi who had been fired on the spot and then sent away for questioning after making the condemning mistake of believing that an assistant's job included cleaning up her boss's office. Ms. Kobayashi had been the replacement for Ms. Yoshiaki who had simply not been able to handle Ms. Mizuhara herself.

"Ms. Mizuhara, there's a Mr. Ryou Minakata on line two for you," Mrs. Sakamoto stated plainly, making a conscious effort to keep herself from stuttering. In the mornings Ms. Mizuhara was fairly easy to get along with, but not so much around six o'clock in the evening.

Koyomi sighed and glanced to the phone on her desk as though it was a small monster ready to pounce.

"Thank you," she replied and finally reached over to pick up the phone's receiver. "And Mrs. Sakamoto?"

The door that had just closed reopened and Mrs. Sakamoto poked her head back inside.

"Yes ma'am?"

"You can go ahead and take off. I'm going to be here for a while."

"Thank you," Mrs. Sakamoto smiled and bowed slightly, "Have a good night."

Koyomi waited for the door to click shut before hitting the number two button on the phone. The previously dead line opened and she brought the receiver to her ear.

"What do you want this time, Ryou?" Though her voice sounded exasperated, there was a smallest hint of a smile playing at the corners of her lips.

"Hey, you!" an energetic voice spoke up from the other end of the line. "I was just calling to check up and see how you're doing."

Koyomi rolled her eyes.

"And?" If there was one thing that she didn't like, and that most people knew she didn't like, it was being 'checked up' on. She cradled the phone between her ear and shoulder and turned to bring up another file from the box.

"Annnnd I wanted to see if you were still on for Friday night. Piper's at eight o'clock. The reservation still stands for six people and we all know how you are keeping _those_ kinds of appointments."

"Dammit, Ryou!" Her conversational tone snapped suddenly to pieces. She let the folder drop onto the edge of her desk before taking the phone back into her hand. "You knew that this was the first week of classes when you made that reservation so don't try to guilt trip me into going when you know that I'm going to be busy and you know that-"

"All right, all right!" The man relented with a sigh. There was a brief pause and the sound of shifting from his end. "I'm just asking you to try. No pressure, but it would just be nice if you came this time."

Koyomi opened one of the folders on her desk and brought out the first stack of papers.

"I'm not making any promises."

"I know," the man's voice softened considerably. That Koyomi never made promises was something better left unmentioned.

"Glad we're clear on that. If there's nothing else, then I have to get back to work."

"All right. Can I call you tomorrow?"

"No."

"Um…ok."

"I'm kidding. Just don't call me at work. You have my home number."

"Yeah. Later then."

"Bye."

Koyomi hung up the phone and turned her attention to the papers in her hands. She scanned over the first report, flipped the page to scan the second, and then set the stack aside. She brought her fingers to the keyboard of her laptop and had no sooner typed the first word than was disrupted by the sound of a knock on her office door. Slumping back against her seat she brought a hand to her forehead and mouthed a perfectly visible 'oh my fucking god' before straightening back up.

"Come in!' she demanded much less amiably.

The door opened and Mrs. Sakamoto peered back inside.

"So s-sorry to bother you again, but your six fifteen appointment is here."

"My what?" Koyomi frowned at the older woman as though she had lost her mind. She then looked beyond her assistant to see a student standing there holding his books under one arm. The boy had obviously heard the tone of her voice and looked ready to leave and come back another time.

Immediately Koyomi stood up from her desk with a pleasant, though rather forced smile.

"Oh yes! Six fifteen! Please come in," she said as she walked to the door to greet the student. Her first day as a teacher had left her nearly forgetting her original role as the school psychologist.

The boy looked carefully at Mrs. Sakamoto before inching his way into the office. He really should have taken his friend's advice and scheduled an appointment in the morning.

Koyomi rushed back over to her desk where she shut down her laptop and gathered up the reports she had been looking over. The reports were slipped back into their folder and both folders were then tucked back into the box that she shoved under her desk. She then sat down and opened up the top desk drawer in search of her student report book. Every student who saw her was documented in the book along with the date, time, and reason. The book wasn't in the first drawer but rather in the second, as she found after a bit of rummaging.

"All right then- Kino, is it?" she inquired with a smile, looking at the student over the tops of her glasses.

"Yes ma'am," the student replied as he took a seat in one of the chairs in front of Ms. Mizuhara's desk. He felt rather awkward as he watched the woman scramble about to get everything for the appointment that she would need. A leather-bound notebook and several pens were what she brought from her desk, and then she got up to go to a filing cabinet in the very corner of her office. She unlocked the top drawer of the cabinet and began sifting through various files that had had been organized there.

"Your last name is- don't tell me," she said as she checked the file names. The first 'Kino' she came across, she tugged out and looked over her shoulder. "Hisao?"

"Tsunashima."

"Tsunashima! Yes, I remember now. It certainly has been a long time. How've you been?" She replaced the incorrect file and continued sifting. From the front of the files all the way to the back of them she searched, but the student's name was not among them. She searched once, and then twice, her temper rising just slightly with each pass. Finally she slammed the drawer shut and returned to her desk. She would have to find his chart later and just take notes on a piece of paper until then.

"Um…I've actually never had an appointment with you before," the boy averted his gaze to the shiny name plate at the front of the woman's desk before looking back up to see if he had invoked any anger.

For a moment Koyomi sat still and rigid with her hands pressed flat to the surface of her desk. In the next instant she covered up the extent of her embarrassment by sitting back in her chair and crossing one knee over the other. She laced her fingers in her lap and smiled coolly.

"Oh…yes. But I know you from somewhere though." Her voice was smooth and her exterior was the perfect image of a collected young woman who was in charge of everything in her life. On the inside she was madly scouring the cluttered information network of her mind for the boy's image.

"I'm in your homeroom class."

"Yes, of course! Of course you're in my homeroom class," she laughed humorlessly and removed her glasses to pinch the bridge of her nose. When she replaced her glasses she cleared her throat and smiled again. "So what brings you to my office today?"

"I've just been…experiencing a lot of stress with school." Kino's voice grew soft and he shifted uncomfortably. Right away he had been able to tell that his level of stress was nothing compared to the well-dressed wreck sitting across from him and suddenly he was feeling rather foolish.

"Stress…I see," Koyomi's tone turned professional and she leaned forward to fold her hands on her desk. "Stress can be a very hard thing to cope with sometimes. Do you spend a lot of time worrying about things?"

"Yes. Grades, and kendo club mostly."

"Uh huh," Koyomi took up a pen and opened up the leather-bound book to start taking notes. "And does this constant concern keep you from focusing on one task at a time? If you're at kendo club, do you worry about homework assignments and such?"

"Yeah. It wasn't so bad last year, but this year I'm one of the top ranking competitors."

Throughout the entire session, Koyomi kept her attention on the student, always nodding in understanding or asking for clarification on certain matters. Several times though, she couldn't stop herself from stealing the smallest glance to her watch. The box underneath her desk seemed to have a voice that only she could hear, and it was telling her that it was in her best interest to take care of it as soon as possible.

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**Note: **Ba dum ching.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: **I don't own any Azumanga Daioh characters.

**Note:** Bit by bit. The gratuitous sex scene has been edited from this chapter. Unedited version will be available later on fosff dot net.

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**Chapter 3**

"I'm not blaming you for the accident itself, Go," Koyomi voiced sharply into her cell phone as she turned down into the stairwell of a subway station, "I'm saying that your response was disreputable…Uh huh…And what're you doing now?..._That's_ disreputable! You didn't tell anyone?...Who did-" The sudden sound of shattering glass on the other line caused her to frown and cant her head. As the subway roared into the station, she lifted her hand to plug her other ear.

"What was that noise?" she demanded in a louder voice, her scowl only deepening as she listened to the stumbling reply of her coworker, "All right. Just separate out the lanthanides from the others and put them in the- what?...Yes, the casings too. Look, I really can't talk about this right now. I'll get there first thing in the morning but in the meantime just get it cleaned up…Yes…Yes, I realize that, but you're not listening to me. I said just get it cleaned up, save what you can, and we'll work with it later…Are you arguing with me?...Thought so. All right? It's mass-mass stoichiometry. Not that difficult. Get done what you can and I'll be there tomorrow."

Koyomi snapped her phone shut and tucked it into her handbag just as the subway came to stop and slid open its doors. She waited for the flood of people to spill from the nearest train, then slipped her way inside along with the others who had been waiting to get on.

Ten minutes later she stepped from the subway and made her way with the crowd up to the city streets. At 6:20 in the evening, she was already late for the gathering that Ryou had planned. She had canceled three appointments in order to make time for the dinner arrangement, and she had just barely left from her last appointment in time. Five minutes more and the 'fashionably late' excuse wouldn't work.

She had only gone three blocks when her cell phone rang again. Grumbling under her breath, she yanked the phone out and flipped it open.

"This is Koyomi," she answered into the device.

"Hey, where're you at?" Ryou's naturally optimistic voice sounded up from the other end.

Koyomi raised an eyebrow into a cynical arc.

"Sorry, Ryou, but I'm not going to be able to make it tonight," she replied matter-of-factly, "The lab called and I have to go in."

"Oh."

Ryou's suddenly crestfallen tone caused Koyomi to crack a small grin. Ryou was always such an energetic, upbeat man that sometimes she found it fun to ruin his mood, knowing full well that he would bounce right back a few minutes later.

"Yeah, I'm sorry. Maybe next time," she said without hint of a real apology.

She rounded the corner of the block, and up ahead saw the neon blue sign designating the entrance of Piper's bar and lounge. Outside of the lounge there was a short line of people waiting to get in. Such people usually waited in vainas Piper's generally operated by reservation only.

"That's what you said last time, and the time before that," Ryou replied. The softened sound of his voice keyed in to a sense of genuine disappointment. By that time he should have been used to Koyomi standing him up, but every time he couldn't help but hope for a difference.

"Don't bitch to me about it. What did I tell you?"

"Yeah, yeah. Busy week. You can't work all the time, you know."

"Work is what I do. I have a career, not a job. If I didn't want to do it then I wouldn't have stayed in school for twenty years."

Koyomi passed the line of people outside of Piper's and made her way to the double doors at the front. Bringing out her ID from her purse, she showed the card to the man standing there behind a podium. The man glanced at her name, then checked a list on a digital clip board in front of him. After marking her name, he nodded for her to go in.

"Yeah well, that 'career' is eating you alive. When the boss said that he wanted one hundred percent from his workers, I don't think he meant one hundred percent of our professional and personal lives."

"You're one to talk," she replied with an evident smirk, "I distinctly remember coming into the lab one morning to find a certain young man fast asleep at his desk."

"One time!"

"Actually, it was twice."

Remembering that the reservation had been for six, Koyomi passed through the main lobby of the bar, past the karaoke rooms and dance floor, and then all the way towards the back where separate booths for larger groups had been set up. All of the booths were set on raised areas of floor, each of one of them filled with parties varying in number from six to eleven. On the lowered portion of the floor were rows of shoes belonging to the individuals occupying the booths.

"Whatever," Ryou sighed. "I never get to see you outside of work anymore. Ever since you took that second- actually make that your _third_ job- at the school-"

"I don't need to hear it, Ryou. If I hadn't been able to handle the job then I wouldn't have volunteered for it."

"You sure about that? This isn't an image thing."

Koyomi made her way down the first aisle of booths, checking the shoes until she came to a familiar pair of worn tennis shoes placed among two pairs of heels and two pairs of evening-formal men's shoes. She stepped up to the booth to which the shoes corresponded and looked inside.

Sitting at the far end of the booth were two young men and their dates. The men were dressed appropriately in casual evening suits, one of which had the sleeves rolled to the elbows, and the women were dressed in older fashion cocktail dresses that reminded Koyomi of something rather like film Noir. On the table in front of them were one half-empty bottle of wine and a partially-eaten sea food appetizer.

At the near end of the booth was another man dressed in a pair of slacks and a white collared shirt, his jacket folded on the spot beside him. The man's dark brown hair was accented with a tinge of red and his nose tipped with more of a slope than most other Japanese. The smooth structure of his face and a faint scattering of freckles gave him an attractive, boyish appeal. Presently he was twisted away from the others at the table with his head gently ducked, one hand holding a cell phone to his ear.

"Tell you what. When I start to feel like I can't handle things," Koyomi said and clicked her phone shut. Stepping up behind the man with the cell phone, she rested a hand to his shoulder and leaned down to speak parallel to his ear, "You'll be the second to know."

"Agh!" the man started and jerked his head towards Koyomi who laughed and straightened back up.

The others at the table turned from their conversations to look at the new comer. One of the men chuckled and lifted his wine glass.

"Well look who finally made it. This is Koyomi?" he asked, slowly moving over to make room.

"Yeah!" Ryou replied and snapped his phone shut. Beaming like a kid on his birthday, he shot to his feet and reached for Koyomi's hand to help her step up into the booth.

Koyomi slipped off her heels and stepped into the booth, taking the seat that Ryou had once occupied. Ryou shoved his jacket over and sat beside her, taking up the wine list from the table and holding it out.

"Does my name precede me that much?" Koyomi inquired jokingly. She took the list that Ryou offered and opened it to the first fold, glancing briefly to the selection before turning her attention back to the other five. "I trust that Ryou has at least been saying good things."

"Very much," one of the women, a curvaceous number with short hair and a lilting accent, spoke up, "He tells us that you're a teacher _and_ a psychologist at the same school. Is that right?

"Yes," Koyomi nodded with a modest grin, "It's a lot to handle but I enjoy it."

"All those kids though," the second man shook his head, helping himself to another glass of wine, "I'm not sure if I would share in your joy so much."

Koyomi shrugged and set the wine list down.

"There are those students who have a little too much energy for a classroom setting," she said, "You really just have to learn how to deal with them."

"I'm sure that hanging around Ryou has given you plenty of experience in that area," the first man chuckled and nudged Ryou with his elbow.

"I'm not that bad," Ryou smirked and rubbed his impacted shoulder.

"No," Koyomi conceded with a soft laugh, "He's definitely not the worst I've seen."

* * *

Later that night, Koyomi dragged herself up the familiar steps of her house. She hadn't meant to drink so much, but the wine she had chosen had been of a particularly good year. She approached the front door and fumbled her keys from her purse. After a bit of sorting, she selected the appropriate key and slipped it into the lock. 

Coming up behind her, Ryou leaned forward and placed one hand against the door, circling his other arm around her waist. He canted his head and smiled against her neck.

"Are you gonna let me in this time?" he murmured though the daze of good feelings caused by his own previous intake of wine.

Koyomi frowned as she unlocked the door and tucked her keys back into her purse pocket.

"Do I ever?" came her terse response. She reached out and clasped the doorknob against her palm.

Ryou shifted his hand from the door frame and closed his fingers about Koyomi's wrist, gently pulling it away from the knob.

"Why not?" he whispered.

Koyomi paused when she felt the man's lips press against the curve of her neck. She stiffened at the touch and closed her eyes, lips parting to release a gentle exhale at the continuation of their roundabout game.

"Because," she replied in an equally soft whisper.

"Because why?" Ryou straightened and shifted Koyomi around. As soon as he was able to look her in the eyes, he tightened both arms around her waist and pushed her back against the door. Every time he asked her questions that required answers from a personal perspective, she dodged them with professional skill. This time he would not allow it.

Koyomi placed her hands to the man's biceps and pushed gently as she felt her back press to the door. There really was nothing wrong with Ryou. She was attracted to him on several levels and found him to be a very personable young man, perhaps too much so. He was attracted to her, and that made her quite uncomfortable.

"Because I can't," she said, her tone dropping to an even softer octave.

"Because you won't. What's wrong? We've been round and round with this and each time it's the same thing. I know it's not because you don't like me."

"You wouldn't-," Koyomi stopped herself with a brief shake of her head, "You couldn't understand."

Ryou sighed. Leaning his weight further against her, he lifted one hand from around her waist and reached for the clips at the back of her head that presently held her hair in its bun. One at a time he removed the clips and let them fall to the ground, subsequently bringing Koyomi's hair down around her shoulders.

"All right," he relented, sifting his finger tips back through the soft length, "Is that what you want? Just leave it at that?"

For a moment Koyomi was silent, slipping her eyes shut once more to the feel of those fingers against her scalp. She knew that Ryou was only trying to offer her an outlet, and she also knew that he could not help her. As well as she was aware of these things, she could not go on for the rest of her life as she had been for the past several years. She was thirty-four years old and still single, nowhere near getting married or even deeply attached to anyone. She had never imagined herself the type to grow old by herself, and the only way to avoid that reality was to take a step in the other direction.

"No," she stopped Ryou just as she felt him begin to pull away. Carefully bringing her hands up, she alighted her palms to his cheeks and bade him to look at her. There was silence as she studied him through the thin frames of her glasses, the pad of her thumb skimming gently across his lower lip. In that instant a voice at the back of her mind screamed that she should let him go, yet it was already too late. There were some things that could only be discovered through direct interaction. She pulled him closer and canted her head.

Ryou stilled himself long enough to receive an unspoken confirmation that he was not crossing any lines. He let himself be drawn in, constricting his grip around the shorter woman and pulling her up against him.

Koyomi snaked her arms around Ryou's neck as she was taken into the firm circle of his arms. Initially their lips grazed, and within the next instant she pushed herself further andturned the transparent touch into a fully formed seal.

For a moment that had been years in the making, Ryou felt as though another piece of his dream had fallen into place. He had been pursuing Koyomi fromthe very first glance he had gotten of her.It had taken him several months just to get a greeting out of her and several more to get a conversation. All the while, he had never been dishonest to her about his feelings. He had always been confident that he could make her happy, but she had never allowed him the chance. Now as he held the object of his affection securely within his grasp, finally getting to feel those lips that he had been dreaming about for so long, his mind became saturated with thoughts of just how lucky he was.

Koyomi couldn't remember the last time she had been kissed. She hadn't realized how much she had missed that delicate warmth, an exclusive sensation that could only be translated from one person to another. In that moment she knew that she had not made a mistake. This was what she wanted.

She parted her lips to the kiss and clenched one hand into the cropped length of Ryou's hair. With her other hand she reached behind her and twisted the knob of the door. The door swung open and she stumbled backwards into the house with Ryou fast in tow.

* * *

**Note:** Yes, Tomo's appearance is coming up. 


End file.
